A thumb-nail history of the city of Houston, Texas, from its founding in 1836 to the year 1912 Page: 139

CHAPTER NINE.
Early Literary Efforts-Splendid Work Done by
the Ladies-Sketch of the Houston Lyceum
and the Carnegie Library-Labor Organizations
and Their Work.
Perhaps no city in the United States had among
its early settlers so many prominent and distinguished
men as had Houston. As a rule, new cities
as well as new countries are settled by pioneers who
are distinguished more for their brawn and muscle
than for their culture and intelligence. Hard
work, requiring strength and endurance counts for
more in a new country than courtly manners and
scientific ability. These latter belong rather to the
children of pioneers than to the pioneers themselves.
Houston affords a striking exception to
this rule, for among her early settlers were some of
the greatest, most prominent and intellectual men
in America. This was as true of the foreign element
as of the native-born Americans; in fact the
latter, as a whole, contrasted rather unfavorably
with the distinguished Germans who were among
the first settlers. While the Americans excelled,
naturally, in statecraft and in the legal and medical
professions, being far more accustomed to the
needs,requirements and customs of thiscountrythan
their foreign friends and associates, yet the latter
contributed more largely to the arts, sciences and
general literature and thus, between the two, Hous